


Bait Stars

by Gildedstorm



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Books of Sorrow, Gen, The Hive - Freeform, making the krill content I wanna see in the world, pre-books of sorrow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 10:30:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18092621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gildedstorm/pseuds/Gildedstorm
Summary: On one of the Fundament's nights, dark and thick as fear, Xi Ro revels in small victories.





	Bait Stars

**Author's Note:**

> this is actually a fic I finished a while ago, I've just been extremely lax on uploading my work this year. destiny lured me away with excellent lore and now I am emotional about the hive all the time! the relationship between these three will always be close to my heart, even knowing what awaits them...

“Look, another one!” Xi Ro calls out, the bait star glimmering – its warm/welcome/safe light dimming slowly in her clenched hand – as she leaps down the steps to join her sisters.

This is why she loves her sisters: Sathona and Aurash have no interest in knightly feats, but they crowd close anyways, admiring the strength of her arm, the keen edge of her blade, her swift and sure feet.

Taox would call it a foolish risk to chase after a stormjoy. Father would say nothing – the triumphs of his youngest daughter of a small brood are not very important to a king, especially with maybe-war on the wind. Even if she wants to be a knight! Even if he will _need_ more knights, if it comes to that.

Xi Ro almost hopes it does, even if that would make Taox frown and be stern with her. It is true that there are more than enough things alive – and some not, like rain or fickle waves – that kill their people already, and adding more is unwise.

(Lack of wisdom is another thing that kills, and quickly.)

But when the court talks of the Helium Drinkers, she wants to _know_ – and in this feels what being Aurash must feel like, all the time – what their weapons are like, their armour, if they learn the cleaver the same way. Would she be stronger than them, or faster? Who would win?

But the war is a maybe and she is not Aurash, so she does not ask the questions or seek their answers. Instead, she chases stormjoys.

They cluster together, huddled close as if they were newly hatched – maybe it is for her sake, because she is the youngest and there is comfort in this still – and pass the bait star around like a bauble. It shines brightest when still attached to the feeder tentacles, but even now it is reassuring to hold, its glow catching the eye. Xi Ro has two already, kept hidden in a hollowed out shell.

“Is it hard?” Sathona asks, head tilted. “To move against the light when it baits you.”

Xi Ro preens a little as she answers. “It is, a little.” Her smile is sharp and proud. “The light may make me happy, but being stronger than it is even better than that. There is nothing like winning.”

“As long as you keep winning,” Aurash says fondly. They do not need to speak of what happens to those snared by the bait stars, who are a little too slow or unsure. That is why she does it – to cry _Look, I am here!_ _This death has lost, so I am stronger than it!_

She will live a short life, no matter how it ends. She will not know things like Aurash, or become a mother and shift the court through clever words like Sathona. Why not spend her years fighting for kin, strong and gloriously _alive?_ She will be victorious until she isn’t.

That seems a better end than whatever is happening to their father, a withering even clever Taox does not understand.

“I will!” she says, and squeezes her sisters’ shoulders. This feels less like a hatchling comfort now and more something shared – they are together because they know and love each other, and are strong because they are together. “I promise.”


End file.
